We announced a round of angel investment yesterday. It’s been quite a ride getting to this point and I’m very excited about the next year - we’ll have more news to share soon enough.
I’d like to thank Brier Dudley, John Cook, Bloodhound blog and everyone else for covering the news!
This “charmer” is the featured property on the Capitol Hill blog’s neighborhood recruitment program this week. Only in Capitol Hill, Seattle is a property well into jumbo loan territory be considered entry level. We do appreciate the Capitol Hill blog’s efforts and we realize that they really are looking at the less expensive properties (check out this orange charmer for example).
Capitol Hill blog seems ahead of the curve - I couldn’t find a neighborhood recruitment program on most of the other Seattle blogs I looked at.
We don’t normally post about the software that powers our non-blog site (Ruby On Rails - we like it a lot), but I just clicked through for some documentation and lo-and-behold, RubyOnRails.org is now squaterville:
According to domaintools.com, it has been snatched up by a company called Next Angle. It looks like the domain was originally purchased for 4 years on 19-Apr-2004. I’ve seen that same splash page on a lot of typo names.
Until this is worked out (until the squatter is paid extortion money), no installing gems from rubyonrails.org, no documentation from rubyonrails.org, and no love from all the dhh / rails haters in the world.
Update: Apparently it was a hosting problem (that host sure has a spammy default page). From where I sit it’s back online as of today.
At for homes. The researchers think exact numbers are low (like Walmart) while rounded numbers are high. They’re totally wrong on one count though:
“A condo priced at say $153,122 might actually sell faster than one priced at 150″
They may be right about people’s feelings once they see the condo, but they’re 100% wrong about what is important; people and agents alike search for real estate based on fairly standardized price ranges and when you’re selling a $150,000 condo at $153,000 price tag (in a non-Seattle market where condos cost that much), you’re missing a lot of potential buyers.
If your home is near the top of a price range, you are up against a similar homes and lesser homes when people are searching. Say your home is worth around $400,000. You price it for $405,000 and searchers are going to be comparing it to $450,000 homes (and searchers with the $400,000 as their high-end cutoff won’t see it). Price it at $399 and you get an entirely new group of people seeing it and it’s one of the nicest homes in their price range. And the people who are considering homes at $405,000 will still spot it - don’t worry.
Power move if you’re a future home buyer using Estately: find the people who haven’t priced their home properly with operators in the full text box. You can search down to the dollar by typing “price < $408,000" (for homes under $408,000) into the Text Search box. Here’s an example of a custom search in Ballard.
Fears are probably a little overblown that Georgetown will ever be an upscale neighborhood; it is in a valley bounded by a polluted river, an airport and I-5, but residents are concerned.
Remember that dead project that car owners paid taxes on for 3 years only to have the plug pulled? The Seattle Transit blog covers what went wrong from a very pro-Sound Transit standpoint.
Yep, some of 40 year mortgages currently being handed out will simultaneously go over the hill and expire sometime around 2048. And what do 40 year mortgage holders save over a 30 year? Not a lot. You’re saving $100 a month on a $200,000 loan. It’s not like the difference between a 5 and 10 year mortgage or even a 10 and 30 year. My Money Blog charted up the numbers:
Source: My Money Blog
I’m not saying what kind of mortgage people should or shouldn’t get, I’m just saying that 40 year mortgages usually seem unwise to me.
Hot on the heels of the West African “missionary” leasing out a house that isn’t his (and is for sale, not rent) in Ballard (send your check now!), we spotted a story about squatters offering leases on bank-owned (foreclosed) properties they have “colonized.” I like that term. Sounds so much better than “breaking and entering.”
Here’s the deal: they break into the home, then they charge you monthly rent for the new locks they put on the doors. You, dear renter, are now technically a squatter too. You’re just a sucka-squatter who is paying for the privilege. You live in said home, paying rent, until the bank shows up and puts it on the market.
Seems like a nasty scam, but at least someone is home, right? A renter has to be no worse than a bank at doing upkeep on a foreclosure. Presumably they leave the pipes in place.
Hot Tipper Erika let us know that Robin Beaty is renting out this Ballard, Seattle house for a mere $900 a month. Seriously, he’ll send you the keys if you’ll just send $900 for the first month’s rent. Erika says:
“I SERIOUSLY HOPE THAT PEOPLE HAVE THE COMMON SENSE NOT TO FALL FOR THIS BUT JUST WANTED MAKE SURE YOU WERE AWARE OF WHATS GOING ON.”
Perhaps the reverend is aware that a 30 year loan with 20% down and a 5% interest rate, his rental pricing comes out to nearly exactly half of the $1,868 a month our brand spanking new mortgage calculator predicts you’d pay for your payments if you bought it.
Apparently the missionary Mr. Beaty owns real estate up and down the West Coast - Ballard real estate is just part of his master plan. He has also been spotted in Sacramento. If you do decide to rent from Mr. Beaty (or his alter-ego, Rev. Robin Bruce), please get in touch with me; I have a very cheap bridge that you might be interested in buying.
Seriously - a 30 year was recently over 6% (up from 4.25% a month ago) and rates are changing every day. It’s not as dramatic, but you could also say that the 30 year rate is slightly higher than it was in December or lower than it was in August. (OK, so rates have dropped some since then).
(what, did you expect a picture of girls in bikinis?) Source: BankRate.com.
So you might ask yourself “how much house can I afford today?” or “What would the monthly cost be on this house?” And now you have answers: there is now a mortgage calculator built into every property listing. See it? It’s right below the price. If you click on it, you can change your interest rate (like if you have bad credit or still have a lot of payments on your Porsche) or try it with a different down payment.
Click on this sucker to change your parameters (not here - when you’re viewing a listing like this one in Redmond):
Once you’ve popped it open, change your rate, your downpayment, or put in a monthly payment to see your downpayment:
If you want to get all deep on some wacky non-standard mortgage, this won’t quite cut it for you. If you can recommend a good tool for non-standard mortgages, give us a shout out in the comments.
If you aren’t asking yourself “how much house can I afford?” You may be asking yourself “How did I get here?”
Here is an illustrated answer (with some strong language):
Here is the talking heads sympathizing with you:
